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Humanitarian Crisis Strikes Haiti; Midterm Elections Near; YouTube and the Guggenheim Hold Contest For Most Creative YouTube Videos; Typo on Ballot May Affect Voting in Chicago; Gwinnett County Receives Scholarship Award for Best Schools; Tyra Banks Talks About Her Career as a Woman in Business

Aired October 23, 2010 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: The whistle-blower website WikiLeaks is at it again. They have just put out thoughts of pages of classified documents from the Iraq War.

T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Also, ten days away, it's almost Election Day. You know, everybody's out there stumping these days. We'll tell you who's out and about coming up, exactly where they're going to be, as we make our big political push.

Hello from the CNN Center. This your CNN SATURDAY MORNING for October 23rd. I'm T.J. Holmes.

MALVEAUX: And I'm Suzanne Malveaux. It's 10:00 Eastern, 7:00 a.m. for people waking up on the west coast. Thanks for starting your day with us.

Also coming up over the next 60 minutes, a look at the growing health problem in the country. Are you overweight? Doctors say you need to get moving or you could get sick. We are looking at latest shocking reports about diabetes.

HOLMES: Also, you've got a lot on your mind as you go into that voting booth. You need to have your attire on your mind, as well. We'll tell you what particular apparel could get people excused from the polling places in one state. That's coming up.

Also, always love to talk supermodels on the show, but this time it's supermodel and businesswoman. Tyra Banks, she is sharing her experiences in corporate America. Beauty in the Boardroom, that's coming your way just a little later.

We need to start, though, here at the top of the hour with what is fast becoming a horrible humanitarian situation, health situation, a crisis in Haiti now. A fast-moving cholera outbreak has now killed almost 200 people, some 2,300 others have gotten sick.

This happened after heavy rains flooded a river used as Haiti's main drainage system. I spoke earlier with a U.N. humanitarian official in Port-au-Prince. She told me the worst of this is still to come.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IMOGEN WALL, U.N. HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS OFFICE: Part of the problem is here is Haiti, this is not an endemic disease to Haiti. The last case was 1960. There is little expertise in the medical profession here how to handle this. One of the most important thing right now is isolation of patient and those suspected.

So we've got two units going up in the hospital in the center of outbreak at the moment and support going to the clinic so they can manage the case load effectively and try to contain this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: The CDC plans to send a team to Haiti to determine which antibiotics will be most effective in treating the outbreak.

MALVEAUX: WikiLeaks calls it the largest classified military leak in history. Nearly 400,000 documents from the Iraq War published on the whistle-blower group's website.

The Pentagon says some of the names in the documents could put Iraqis and U.S. troops at risk. The information covers a five-year period from 2004 to 2009, including the surge. Now, the Pentagon has sent a team of security experts to analyze these documents. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says that, in effect, he wants to correct history. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JULIAN ASSANGE, WIKILEAKS FOUNDER: The first casualty of war is the truth. But the attack on the truth by war begins long before war starts and continues long after a war ends.

In our relief of these 400,000 documents about the Iraq war, the intimate detail of that war from the U.S. perspective, we hope to correct some of that attack on the truth that occurred before the war, during the war, and which has continued on since the war officially concluded.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Now, of course, the Pentagon has been critical of WikiLeaks, critical of Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. This particularly one, also critical on the last document dump, if you will, when he sent out 70,000 documents, posted them online. That was about the Afghan war.

Military officials are not pleased. Tack a listen a here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEOFF MORRELL, PENTAGON SPOKESMAN: There will be potentially 500,000 classified documents in the public domain exactly where they should not be. At the very least it endangers well-being of our forces, those we are fighting with and Afghans and Iraqis working with us. That's a travesty. It's deplorable. It's shameful that WikiLeaks would do such a thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: I want to turn to Mohammed Jamjoon who is with us. Mohammed, with the last documents about the Afghan war you had U.S. officials saying Julian Assange and WikiLeaks could have blood on their hands.

This time around the documents are about Iraq. Do Iraqis have those kinds of concerns that may be putting this information out there puts Iraqi citizens in danger?

MOHAMMED JAMJOON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, T.J., the Iraqi prime minister and interior minister have yet to comment on the release of these documents, but we have started getting some reaction from some Iraqi lawmakers.

We spoke earlier with an Iraqi lawmaker with the Sunni coalition here. Earlier today he told us, "I haven't reviewed or seen the document but was I've heard about them through media outlets. I'm not shocked and I'm not surprised. But it made me remember the agony of the previous events we lived through, all the incidents listed in these documents, we lives through it, like the documents that mention the spontaneous shooting incidents by the Americans, cold-blooding killing by the American and Iraqi forces, torture, and the secret prisons."

We also spoke with Kurdish lawmakers who are not surprised to see what's in the documents, what's being reported by the media, and they think this will verify what they know, that there were torture that happened, there were abuses that happened to Iraqi detains at hands of Iraqi officials and Americans turned a blind eye and helped cover it up.

HOLMES: I want to make sure you might have made the point, they're watching these, keeping up with the story but sounds like no one there so far is talking about something coming out of the documents that they didn't already know or suspect, that these documents maybe confirm it?

JAMJOON: We don't expect to hear more of a reaction for another 24 to 48 hours here. That's usually the amount of time it takes before there's an official Iraqi government statement when there's this level of something that really accuses the Iraqi government of being a part of. But so far nobody is suggesting that.

There are concerns expressed by the Pentagon about the safety of Iraqis named in these documents. We heard there was a team of Pentagon officials going over these documents. They were seeing there were names of Iraqis in these documents. They were going to notify them to see if they could offer them protection to make sure they weren't in danger.

The Iraqi government hasn't commented on this, the Americans have said they would try offer protection. We don't know what that will be. We have not been able to contact any of the Iraqis, maybe 300 or so, that may have been named in the documents.

But was we imagine that if they do want protection, they will try to get some sort of political asylum from the Americans. We'll keep trying to get more information about that, T.J.

HOLMES: Mohammed Jamjoon for us in Baghdad, we appreciate you, as always.

MALVEAUX: The American Diabetes Association is describing new projects on the rising rate of the disease as "shocking." The CDC says that one in ten adults in the United States now have diabetes. That is more than 23.5 million people. By the year of 2050, the CDC says diabetes rate will jump to one in three adult Americans. A CDC expert on diabetes says impact on our health care system could be staggering.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANN ALBRIGHT, DIRECTOR, CDC DIVISION OF DIABETES TRANSLATION: We can't manage this increase. It's -- it's horrific. It's really a significant issue. So we must work on prevention.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So we must?

ALBRIGHT: We cannot fail. The good news is we can indeed prevent this. We know what to do to prevent type II diabetes, and we give people good information. We're getting them into physical activity, nutrition programs.

But when they go home to where they spend most of their time where they live and work and play, they have to get access to the kinds of foods they are being recommended to get. If they can't access it, it done matter how much good information we give people, they won't be able to implement it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Now, Albright says there are three main reasons for the predicted explosion in diabetes rates -- obesity, diabetics living longer, and a bigger number of at-risk minorities.

Just ahead, candidates are pulling out the big guns as Election Day approaches.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMIE FOX, ACTOR: Obama! Obama!

CROWD: Obama!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: We're going to show you who joined Jamie Fox on the campaign trail.

HOLMES: Also, the big controversy this week over that guy, Juan Williams. I'll have how some controversial remarks he made got him out of one job at NPR but it got him a new deal at his other gig, FOX.

MALVEAUX: But first, testing your news knowledge. Starbucks announced this week some stores will be serving up something a bit stronger than coffee. So what is the new item on the menu? Is it kopi luwak? It's coffee made from, A, animal droppings; B, Coca-cola products; or C, alcohol? The answer, we're going to give you the answer right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Before the break we asked you what is the newest edition to the Starbucks menu. Is it, a, kopi luwak, that's coffee made from animal droppings; B, coca-cola products; or C, alcohol?

HOLMES: The answer Starbucks is going to get my business because they're going to start serving alcohol. I'm not a coffee drinker here, but the coffee giant is starting to serve up beer and wine in Seattle locations, going to start serving up harder stuff after 4:00 p.m. The starting price for wine $7.50, beer $4.75. So still the alcohol is cheaper than the coffee they have apparently.

(LAUGHTER)

HOLMES: Let's turn back to politics here. Entertainers, rock stars of the political nature, all out on the campaign trail this weekend. Actor, singer, comedian Jamie Fox, he set the stage. Look at him here at a Democratic rally. This is at USC in southern California.

He got the crowd started, as you can hear there. He's having a good time up on stage, enjoy wag he was going through. Taking a picture and telling them they would put that up on Twitter as it was going on.

Meanwhile, the president was also in Las Vegas. This was on Friday for a fund-raiser for the Senate majority leader Harry Reid. Of course Harry Reid is in a tough battle to keep his current job against Sharron Angle a Tea Party backed candidate. The president is going to head to a rally at University of Minnesota for the gubernatorial candidate Mark Daden.

Also, the former vice presidential candidate and former governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin. She prizes the crowd eight Tea Party express rally in Arizona yesterday. She wasn't scheduled to speak there but showed up. And they did not mind handing her the microphone. She will headline the Republican National Committee rally in Florida with chairman Michael Steele today.

MALVEAUX: And just a little more than a week before Americans to go to the polls for the elections and a Congressional election in Virginia has drawn attention of both parties. Our deputy political director Paul Steinhauser joining us live from Virginia where an incumbent Democratic congressman is fighting for his seat in the 11th congressional district.

Paul, obviously this is an important election, an important race. You're really in a place where it's a microcosm, if you will, of what is taking place around the country. Tell us why.

PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN DEPUTY POLITICAL DIRECTOR: It certainly is, Suzanne. We're right outside of Washington, D.C., suburban D.C. I was at the bureau with you an hour ago. Just drove down here. The 11th congressional district, as you mentioned.

And today, this is the site of the annual fall festival and parade. It's going to come down Main Street here. Both the congressman, Jerry Connelly and his Republican challenger are marching in the parade. Jerry Connelly. He's voted most of the time with the Democrats, with the Democratic leadership and President Obama.

And because of that, his opponent, I'm going to ask, our cameraman to zoom in here, his opponent, Keith Fimian has been going at him. Fimian ran against Connelly in 2008. So this is a rematch. What's at stake is the battle for the control of the house, Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: From my perch at White House we've seen President Obama making a lot of trips here. He's trying to get his agenda through for the next two years. That may be at risk. Give us the big picture here if, in fact, seats are lost by the Democrats, how much are up for grabs? How many Republicans need to gain to get control of the House?

STEINHAUSER: Well the magic number for the Republican is 39. They need a net gain of 39 seats in November elections to win back control of the House of Representatives.

You mentioned that about the president's agenda, it will be tougher if congressmen like Jerry Connelly are not reelected. He's had quite a challenge last two years with large majorities in the house and the Senate. We're getting ready for the parade. We'll be talking to both congressmen and the Republican challenger. We'll talk next hour.

MALVEAUX: Certainly looks like they're getting ready with the sirens and police. Stay safe. Get out of the way. Tell us how it goes.

CNN "BALLOT BOWL" is back. Here's what the candidates, President Obama, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin are saying about the races, the issues, everything as we count down to those important midterm elections with the best political team on television. "BALLOT BOWL" is today and airs from 3:00 until 6:00 eastern this afternoon, only on CNN.

HOLMES: Let's take a look now at some of the stories that are catching people's eye across the country and across the world, including this. Need to re-rack that for you. You missed the part that has everybody intrigued. Look at that.

This is actually in China. A young fellow, a motorist, speeding on his motor bike, runs into a truck, and we're told, even though you can't see it in this incredible video, does a somersault and lands on his feet, we're told. We don't see that part, but does a full-on somersault and walks back over to check out the bike. Amazing that he was able to survive. But give him ten on that somersault.

Also, Google is admitting it failed and failed miserably by mistakenly collecting private information being sent across wireless networks across 30 countries including right here the United States. E-mail, URL, passwords collected. Company officials say this was not their intent, but collecting this information, they accidentally collected it taking pictures for Google's street view mapping service.

Officials say they deleted the store information from Ireland, Austria, Denmark, and Hong Kong, but other places they haven't because the investigation is going on. Other countries have not given the country permission to delete the rest of the data.

Also, fired from NPR this week for inflammatory comments, FOX News analyst Juan Williams seems that he's got a longer deal with FOX. He serves as a commentator over there for FOX as well, but reportedly given a new deal that will go three years and $2 million. He was fired after he made comments on the air he sometimes gets, quote, "nervous when he sees fellow travelers in Muslim garb."

Those are some of the stories making headlines. We'll have plenty more to share with you throughout the morning.

MALVEAUX: More than 23,000 entries were submitted. Now, we actually know who the winners are.

HOLMES: We're talking about one of the biggest competitions on the Internet. Josh Levs, up right after the break, to show us who came out on top. It's 19 past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Well, it's one of the biggest competitions ever on the Internet. YouTube and the Guggenheim have named the most creative and innovative YouTube videos ever.

HOLMES: Josh Levs has his eye on that for us. Josh, we got winners?

JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We do have winners. Since its YouTube and Guggenheim, they're looking for artistic stuff, it's not going to be Beyonce falling down. But the videos they are highlighting, they do say a lot of what's going on out there.

These videos can be modern art. They actually projected images of this on to the Guggenheim. There you go. It's 25 winners out of more than 23,000 entrants all over the world. This was on Thursday night to celebrate them choosing the 25 winners, they projected them through the video mapping process so if you were on the streets of New York that is what you were seeing.

Let me show you a few of the winters named most creative, most innovative videos every online, starting off with this one called "Seaweed." Take a look at this.

No, not this. OK. I don't know what you're seeing there. Skip that altogether. That's something completely different. I don't know what that was. Go to the next one. See if they have the next video. That should look right.

And what you'll see here -- what's that? OK. We're going to go -- just skip ahead to the next video. What you're going to see, this one, this is called "The shyness Syndrome." And this is out of Paris and it's a guy projecting what it is to be shy, how he feels when he's around other people. This thing went viral because people think it's hilarious. This is how he feels when they expect them to talk.

(VIDEO CLIP)

LEVS: Love it. Tens of thousands of people are watching that. Now the people who chose winners are saying it's one of the most innovative artistic ones.

And one more to show you here. It's pretty cool, something we got to look at earlier, "Flying Food." And the reason they chose this one from the two brothers, Matthew and Eric Cooper, is they said that this shows the incredible state of where video-graphy can be now online. They say you can see every pixel amazingly clearly.

Through high-speed video they capture this food once it was thrown up in the air in every single tiny, little detail. They say this is developmental. They say this is modern art. I'll tell you, now that these have been selected by YouTube and the Guggenheim, they're get more hits. Some have passed 1 million in the past few weeks, this one included.

I have all of them linked up. Take a look at my pages, Facebook and Twitter, Josh Levs at CNN. Watch at YouTube and hit play. The most popular ones are the funny ones, like I said, David after dentist or Beyonce falling down. But people looking at this from an artistic perspective, let's not forget about these, two, developing a new kind of art. I want to know what you think.

So Suzanne, T.J., there you go. A little taste of what's being celebrated now online.

MALVEAUX: I love the food. That's great. It's beautiful. Just tossed up, it does look like a piece of art.

HOLMES: I like my food on the plate.

(LAUGHTER)

LEVS: No one would do that to you, don't worry.

MALVEAUX: Thanks, Josh.

Well, are you a WWE fan? What if I told you that could actually keep you from voting in one particular state?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are we going to have clothing police now at the polls?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: We're going to explain up ahead.

HOLMES: Also, coming up, it is a tough competition in Illinois to be governor of the state. One of the options some voters are going to have, "Rich Whitey," would you vote for him? That is one of their options in their state. We're going to ask "Rich Whitey" about that. He's going to be a live guest coming up.

First, check this out. We've been giving you these quizzes. Here's a question for you now. According to a recent study -- a senior NATO official, where exactly is Osama bin Laden? Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, France? We'll tell you what the official said coming up after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Before the break we asked, according to a senior NATO official, where is Osama bin Laden? A, Pakistan, b, Afghanistan, c, Iraq, or d, France? The answer, a, Pakistan. Officials said Osama bin Laden is believed to be comfortably harbored in a house in Pakistan, not a cave as previously thought.

HOLMES: We turn back to politics now. We're going to focus on Illinois where the African-American vote could be very important there to whoever is going to win. But when an African-American walks into the voting booth, is it possible they're going to vote for "Rich Whitey"?

What you're seeing here, folks, is a real case of what happened after a computer glitch. The Green Party candidate, Rich Whitney, he was listed on one part of the ballot without the "n" in his last name. So that means a candidate there by the name of "Rich Whitey." The typo listed him as that, to believe it or not. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHIL HUCKELBERRY, ILLINOIS GREEN PARTY CHAIRMAN: On the one hand, the city of Chicago is a laughingstock, on the other hand our candidate kind of, you know, has been tagged with a name that really isn't that nice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We treat everyone with the same degree of attention and fairness, so third party candidates, the green party, we say at the Chicago board of elections we are very, very sorry. We're embarrassed, and apologize.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Now, the mistake was spotted by an early voter and reported to board of elections who said the problem could not be fixed. But apparently now all of the national attention and the ensuing embarrassment forced them to correct the typo in there are almost 5,000 electronic voting machines. The candidate, formerly known as "Rich Whitey," joins me now live in Chicago. Rich Whitney is here. Thank you for being here. When this first came out, you heard about it did you laugh or was this always serious business when you heard about it?

RICH WHITNEY, ILLINOIS GREEN PARTY CANDIDATE: Well, you have to laugh a little bit. I mean, there is a humorous aspect. I especially like the blogger who wrote, you know what, why don't they name all of the candidates "Rich Whitey" on the ballot it would save us a lot of time.

(LAUGHTER)

HOLMES: There is something to be said for that. Have they done enough to correct the problem now in your eyes? Has this been taken care of?

WHITNEY: Well, we are told they have corrected the problem. We haven't had any new reports of problems. But you know what, it took them the better part of two weeks to fix it, and this does underscore a very serious issue. We're dealing with machine politics at two levels, the machine, you know, the notorious Chicago machine, and then the little machines the voting machines run by private for profit corporations using proprietary software. It's black box voting. It's a real problem.

HOLMES: Would you say, Mr. Whitney, are you convinced this was an honest mistake? Would you ever suggest possibly somebody did this intentionally?

WHITNEY: Well, there's no way of knowing it for certain. But the explanation that we got is that a technician for this private company, Dominion -- if that isn't scary enough is the name of the company -- apparently said that they only had so many characters for the name so they had to take a letter out and that just happened to be one that they chose. I'm not buying that. I am not buying that.

HOLMES: Yes.

WHITNEY: This probably cost me votes. People can go to Whitneyforgov.org to see the whole story.

But it's still unfolding. We just learned yesterday one of our other candidates had another problem with voting machines. If you like I can tell you about that real quick.

HOLMES: Actually I want to move on. There's a couple of other things I want to get to you. I know you've run for governor in Illinois before, '06, I believe you got 10 percent. People are familiar with you enough now, but because of this, you being labeled "Rich Whitey" on a ballot, has that some kind of way helped you out in that you're getting more press than you ever realized?

WHITNEY: Well, that is certainly the silver lining. But it's hard to say how that plays out, because, you know, there is a novelty factor to there, but that done mean people are going to vote for me as a result of that.

I do hope that they take time to look at my website and see where I stand on the issues because that's the real reason, of course they should vote for me.

HOLMES: That's the real reason there.

Sir, it sounds like they have been able to answer things and deal with it to your satisfaction. I know, and to explain to our viewers a little bit, the first screen they saw where they could check your name it did say "Rich Whitney," the correct name, but when they got to the review screen at the end, these were your selections that's when it said "R. Whitey" or "Rich Whitey."

How much do you think that could have cost you? Surely people would know if they clicked your name once they should know on that review screen what they actually had selected.

WHITNEY: Well, after they got to the review screen, or when they got to the review screen, they could change their vote. So if someone -- certainly people were confused by this, and if they thought that's not the person I meant to vote for, they could change their vote.

Now am I saying there were a lot of people who did this? Probably not. But it raises questions about the integrity of the voting machines generally, and I think that's a serious issue and it's an ongoing issue. Something as important of the integrity of our vote, in my view, should not be left to private for profit corporations where apparently it was not cost effective for them to proofread the ballot in a gubernatorial race.

HOLMES: Mr. Whitney, I appreciate you coming on and spending the time. You have been, as I know, a good sport about this, and there have been some laughs out there. But again, maybe it gives us an opportunity to highlight a problem many have been screaming about for years and years, some of these voting machines. And it may help your campaign as well. Thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your Saturday.

WHITNEY: Thank you very much.

MALVEAUX: Republicans are angry over decision by the Connecticut secretary of state about voters' clothing. Poll workers would have the right to ask people wearing World Wrestling Entertainment merchandise to cover it up. The GOP Senate candidate Linda McMahon left her job as WWE chief executive to run for office. The secretary of state says a WWE shirt or cap would be considered political advertising.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUSAN BYWIEWICZ, SECRETARY OF STATE: The intent is not to disenfranchise anyone. It's just to keep the polling place free from the influence of campaign material.

CHRIS HEALY, CONNECTICUT GOP CHAIRMAN: This idea that certain types of clothing as she determines prohibits someone from voting is nonsense. Are we going to have clothing police at the polls? It's an attack on the First Amendment, and we're not going to let her get away with it. If she tries to push it farther, we'll see her in court.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: We don't know how much more pushing might be done on that particular story. Just giving guidance, not telling people they can't wear the stuff, but the people working the polling places could ask people to take they stuff off.

MALVEAUX: You wonder how many people are wearing the gear?

HOLMES: That's a good question. That's a debate we had in the newsroom, how many people are walking around with WWE stuff?

Coming up, we've got some weather to tell you about, a new tropical storm brewing in the Caribbean. Richard, I believe is the name. Bonnie Schneider is standing by, she's coming up.

MALVEAUX: Plus, in France, if you block an oil refinery, you can expect a dramatic response from riot police. That's right, riot police. We have amazing footage from new clashes over the French Senate's retirement age hike. That's coming up next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: We want to recognize a special group that's here at CNN, students from Clayton State University, journalism students in the Atlanta area, a very impressive group there. Wave to your families, they're watching.

(LAUGHTER)

It is great to have you with us here this morning, a really very accomplished group there. We're going to spend a couple of hours. They've been watching us. We've been watching them. They will have a chance to talk about journalism. We welcome them here to CNN and certainly hope they'll be some hires, some recent hires, here, they'll be in the CNN family shortly. Hey, send us your resumes, we'll pass them along.

HOLMES: I never understood why we were friendly to people who are clearly and literally after our jobs. I never got that.

MALVEAUX: You're supposed to mentor people, right, T.J.? That's the idea.

HOLMES: Suzanne, they're coming after us.

(LAUGHTER)

MALVEAUX: I'm going to keep my job. I'm going to try, at least.

(WEATHER BREAK)

HOLMES: Coming up, a Georgia school district finds itself a finalist two years in a row for a very prestigious honor. You know, always bridesmaid, never the bride. Look at the announcement that came, once again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: That was her "it's about time" face. We'll tell you what the honor is. It is a big deal and what goes along with it. It's 44 minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: A suburban Atlanta school district has been awarded $1 million, yes, $1 million in scholarship money. Gwinnett County schools won the prize for the best urban school district in the country this week.

WXIA's Donna Lowry was there when the award was announced.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONNA LOWRY, WXIA REPORTER (voice-over): You could see it on their faces, anticipation has Gwinnett County hosted a watch party to hear who won. Five counties were listed as finalists for the prize. Four would get $250,000 each, the winner, $1 million in college scholarships. Last year Gwinnett was a finalist. They didn't win the big bucks but still got some money.

SLOAN ROACH, GWINNETT COUNTY SCHOOLS: Being able to surprise 13 seniors with the fact they received $20,000 scholarship was something that stands out.

LOWRY: They used last year's motivation to win the $1 million, and they did it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our winner for 2010 is the Gwinnett County public schools. Congratulations.

ROACH: It's such a great moment for a school district.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you come so close, you just say, what else can we do? And I think this year we raised the bar.

LOWRY: The prize is given to school districts that show the greatest improvement. It focuses on tightening gaps between poor and minority students.

ROACH: These scholarships don't go to necessarily the valedictorian. They go to students who have turned their academic career around.

(END VIDEOTAPE) MALVEAUX: Joining me live in the studio to discuss this academic honor are Gwinnett County associate superintendent Steven Flynt and Kelli McCain, the principal at Meadow Creek elementary. Did you scream the way she screamed in that story?

STEVE FLYNT, ASSOCIATE SUPERINTENDENT, GWINNETT COUNTY SCHOOLS: Yes.

MALVEAUX: You can tell how much joy and excitement there is. Congratulations to you both. What difference, do you think it will make for these students? We'll start with you.

KELLY MCCAIN, PRINCIPAL, MEADOW CREEK ELEMENTARY: Well, many of our students will now have the opportunity where they hadn't before to go to college, and that makes a huge, huge difference in their lives. And it's an honor for them to be able to have this scholarship to help them finish many of our students are first-time students and their families to finish high school and to go to college. So this is an honor for them.

MALVEAUX: Steven, who do you credit this? Is it the parents? Is it the students? Is it how your school system is set up what makes it unique?

FLYNT: We have to give a lot of credit everywhere. We have a great board of education and we have a long term superintendant and board that work very well together. We have a dynamic school system full of teachers and principals that go about the work of teaching and learning.

Really, from the top of our board of education all the way down into every individual classroom, we're all about that teaching and learning. We can't discount the community and our chamber and the businesses.

MALVEAUX: Sure.

FLYNT: Everybody pulls together to work with our school system. So yes, I'd said it's a joint ever for everybody in Gwinnett.

MALVEAUX: Kelli, talk about some of the students there, because you have seen the improvement, you have seen them grow. What are they doing?

MCCAIN: Our students, along with our teachers -- I can't say enough about the teachers. They care about the students and not just their academic success but about their success as a whole.

And that makes a difference in the county and the academic success that our students have experienced over the years. And actually one of the students that received the scholarship last year used to attend my school. So we were very, very excited and, of course, honored to, again, to finally win the award this year.

MALVEAUX: You must be very proud. You came so close, year after year, now you finally got it. What do you think of the Obama administration's approach to education, to revamping the curriculum? I noticed the Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, was there for the ceremony.

FLYNT: Sure. An aligned curriculum, knowing what you need to teach is something that we've focused on since 1996. We have the academic and skills which is our curriculum. We align that to the state curriculum. The work on the common core state standard is something we're looking forward to.

So I think the curriculum piece is very important. It's important what you teach. It's also important to reward the great things that are going on in education. So I think the race to the top move, a lot of the value in that is going to come out in what's happening in great school systems across the country.

MALVEAUX: And this potentially, this money is a game changer for some of these students, some of these kids. What does it mean for them to have that financial support again now?

MCCAIN: Again, definitely the opportunity to extend their education beyond K through 12. And we're excited about that. Even at the elementary school level, we're having conversations with children about going to college.

And the elementary level connected with middle school where they'll attend after they leave Meadow Creek Elementary, we are talking to them about college and talking to them about their learning even beyond K through 12.

MALVEAUX: Kelli McCain, Steven Flynt, congratulations once again to all of the young people and the students out there, excellent job.

FLYNT: Thank you.

MCCAIN: Thank you.

HOLMES: All right, the midterm elections, we've been talking about those an awful lot. We only got another ten days to talk about them. One big part of every campaign is money. A lot of ads right now are going up by third party groups who are throwing a lot of money. We'll show you how one ad by a Chinese professor is causing quite the stir in the political world.

Meanwhile, in the world of entertainment, she has been causing a stir for quite some time. She went from supermodel to media mogul. Tyra Banks talking to us. You'll hear from her coming up. It's 53 minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Coming up at the top of the hour, we're talking about beauty now in the boardroom. A supermodel and businesswoman sharing her experiences in corporate America.

MALVEAUX: We sat down recently with media mogul Tyra Banks at a "Fortune" magazine women's summit in Washington, and she shared her experiences on navigating corporate culture and confronting body image.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: You have always used all of your beauty, your assets, to get ahead as well as your intellect. How do women balance that, that sense of using your image, physical self, your body as proving to people that I have credibility?

TYRA BANKS, SUPERMODEL: How have you done it?

MALVEAUX: I get to ask the questions.

BANKS: You can't answer, too?

MALVEAUX: I can answer.

BANKS: How do you do it? You're pretty.

MALVEAUX: It's a balance, yes. Well, I try to, you know, exude both as best as I can. What do you do?

BANKS: I -- I always tell women, don't be ashamed of it, don't hide it. Get the hair done, get the nails done, go into the meeting and rock that amazing dress or that suit, put the makeup on, because there's power in it. You want to negotiate and get that deal done, it can help.

MALVEAUX: But pay attention to what you're saying.

BANKS: Definitely. As you become successful as a woman we're taught to doll our shine, we're kind of taught to kind of kowtow. I'm successful, I know I am, not to share those things with the world. But I felt the need to share it, to let young girls know, don't shrink, like it's OK, stand up proud, say what you want, say it, and make it real.

MALVEAUX: That is where you are now?

BANKS: It was really important to me as a model of color for corporations to invest in me and hire me to endorse their product. I got contracts with Pepsi, Nike, Cover Girl, Swatch, and Maybelline and Max Factor. To me, dealing with corporate America was where true success was.

MALVEAUX: And how did you break through? What do you tell people? How did you make that happen for yourself?

BANKS: I was very strategic. I said, you know what, I have to be true to myself. I'm not a high fashioned model that talks like this and it's so intimidating. I like going to Wal-Mart. I love the people. And I was like, just be yourself.

Also being myself had to do with gaining a little weight. My mother managed me. We would sit down over pizza, over ice cream. As my butt got bigger, we would sit down and plot and plan, not about pretty, it's about this.

MALVEAUX: You talked about the weight issue. How important is that that women get over that?

BANKS: I don't think women are going to necessarily get over the weight issue ever, ever, because society is saying that a certain size is what is prime. If you don't look like that, you're a failure.